Issue #3&4 – Justice, Mercy & the Problem of Faith

BethanySMC - Thursday, 1 October 2015 04:42

Justice, Mercy & the Problem of Faith

– Issue #3&4

Agreeing or disagreeing with Justice and Mercy of God doesn’t prove anything. However, once the seeds of doubt are already planted in the heart, arguments against God’s justice and mercy will just water the doubts and unbelief. This was true in Vadim’s life that contributed to his fall. It just proves the Bible to be true, that a house with no foundation will fall when the winds blow and different world views press on it. The sad reality of today is that there are many potential preachers, prophets and gifted people that from the outside look like genuine believers but internally have no foundation. I didn’t hear any recent, nor do I remember any sermons that were preached by Vadim, however, the one that I do remember, I remember only because I listened to it from the Times Square Church sermon archive and when Vadim was re-preaching it, it sounded great. That makes me doubt about the source of his other sermons.

Using the argument against Justice and the Mercy of God, to deny God, would be equivalent as to deny the existence of the government because the current laws do not seem to represent the constitution. It looks like the devil didn’t use much of his time to argue against justice and the mercy of God, therefore I will not go into much detail in my response.

The Old and the New Testaments agree that God has no pleasure in torturing people. God didn’t create Hell for people. In Mat 25:41, we read “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;” There are at least 3 different view on hell in the Christian world today that I am aware of, but disagreements in theology concerning hell, spiritual gifts, even predestination, do not prove or disprove the existence of God. God gave people freewill to choose their destiny and while they are alive, they have the ability to make the best out of this choice.

In His mercy, God provided the way of salvation- one door that leads to eternal life. He didn’t hide that door in the bushes, so everyone who believes would be saved. Accusing God for the choices of men is like accusing a lifeguard who is dying himself trying to save someone who is drowning but who is rejecting his help.

Now back to the supernatural and the reasons for the Faith in God.

Our former preacher is majoring in law; but when I look at all the shallow arguments my former brother is bringing up against the true faith. I honestly expected better judgment from him, from a person who studies the law and hopes to become a successful lawyer. If a lawyer will not learn to objectively look at the evidences to support his claims- in a few years we may read a post that goes something like this: “Journey from a potential lawyer to office assistant, or truck driver or ______”- my personal opinion.

Let’s say a case is argued in a court and someone comes and claims he/she saw something. Let’s say, witnessed verbal abuse –this testimony alone will not be enough to persuade the jury. However, if five people through cross examination say the same thing, fifty people, a hundred, five hundred – would that be enough for the jury to believe that such and such verbal abuse occurred? This is how faith generates. The testimony witness of trustworthy people who saw, heard, touched and experienced something- are in themselves tangible evidences. That’s why Christianity was spreading despite all the efforts to stop it. Cross examinations of witnesses were proving that supernatural things did happen. So authorities had no other way to stop the testimony but by killing people. No one from the past has the human ability to present physical evidence for future generations; the things they saw and heard. If one person claimed that he saw a supernatural sign, I would be skeptical, but if 500 people confirmed that they saw it too and their testimony would not contradict one another, I would not deny or dismiss it.

..what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life– and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us– what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 1John1:1-3

For all the skeptics of that time, God calls upon witnesses whom people can question and cross-examine. 1Co.15:6-8After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

If I would be covering up a lie, I would not want 500 + people to “help me testify” or at least I would not refer them as witnesses.

In the conversation concerning Vadim’s post, he and his supporters bring the argument of other religions to mock the faith in God. Their logic – if there are so many false religions in the world then Christianity must be false also. People die for other faith beliefs too, why are Christian people any different? To address those questions, we have to look specifically at each religion that is compared to Christianity objectively. In general, it is not surprising that some people are willing to die because of their beliefs. Just to be killed for something doesn’t make the cause right. People die for countries, for ideological and philosophical ideas, people die for religious convictions; some blindly, some not. In case of Christianity – people died for their testimony and the truth that they could not be quiet about. “But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.””

The God of the Bible challenges all other religions and gods, and no religion or god on earth could match the challenge. Some religions attempt to predict the future, but really there is no comparable authority as Biblical Prophecies that were precisely fulfilled in detail and will continue to fulfill until the end.

“For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him?”

“Has {any} people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard {it,} and survived?”

“To whom would you liken Me And make Me equal and compare Me, That we would be alike? “Those who lavish gold from the purse And weigh silver on the scale Hire a goldsmith, and he makes it {into} a god; They bow down, indeed they worship it. “They lift it upon the shoulder {and} carry it; They set it in its place and it stands {there.} It does not move from its place. Though one may cry to it, it cannot answer; It cannot deliver him from his distress. “Remember this, and be assured; Recall it to mind, you transgressors. “Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; {I am} God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned {it, surely} I will do it. “Listen to Me, you stubborn-minded, Who are far from righteousness. “I bring near My righteousness, it is not far off; And My salvation will not delay. And I will grant salvation in Zion, {And} My glory for Israel.”

To prove so, we have to look at each religion and god specifically. For now, I will focus on addressing the atheistic religion that claims that there is no God. I will attempt to show that atheistic religious views are not as reasonable and logical as they claim to be. Views held by atheists today were included and considered to be religious in many ancient regions up to the year 1859, when such views were shaped to sound scientific.

Reliable testimonies are not the only type of evidence that we base our faith in God. Bible calls us to look at the world that God created. Ro.1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

More and more scientific discoveries support an intelligent design over its alternative view. Modern scientific discoveries of the last century “killed” 90% of the arguments that used to be pillars to argue against creation. Leading non Christian scientists writes books about fiasco current atheistic views. Living organisms clearly show that without intelligent design, they would not appear as they are even if it took a billion of years. The same way as a mouse trap cannot load itself to catch a prey, no matter how many billions of years it will “lay on the shelf” exposed to elements. Such discoveries are highly persecuted and lobbied against because they expose the “holy cow” of modern day atheistic secular religion whose time on earth is coming to an end. The last hope that they have is to indoctrinate children and students by manipulating data and covering it in scientific terms, so people would continue to believe despite the clear evidences against their faith. Talk about blind faith!

I would highly recommend listening and looking into this subject deeper. I recommend the presentations of Steve Gregg (whose theology and Biblical view I am not endorsing or fully supporting) but give him credit for the intense and objective study of this and many other subjects. Steve is a searcher for truth and has done a lot of personal research to form his convictions.

I CHALLENGE you Vadim and those who share your new-found belief and faith. Listen to these presentations … perhaps those who influenced you to deny Christ missed something. Logic and reasoning, research and science is not in favor of Atheistic faith!!

Another presentation of Steve Gregg – Why I Am Still a Christian – explains five reasons why Christian faith is far more reasonable than atheism or other religions out there.

Vadim writes “Humans are rational creatures. When we hear someone make a claim, we apply logic and reason to that claim, weigh the evidence for and against, and then decide to believe it only if there is enough evidence to support the claim.” To me, the logic and reasoning the devil uses nowadays to persuade people to believe something else than the Bible, has much less logic, rationality and evidences. Atheist finds it is impossible to believe that a serpent talked to Eve, however, considering the claims of atheists, who by “rational thinking figured out” that if you give millions of years, Nitrogen (tasteless, odorless gas), can become that very same (talking) snake, and develop into, as complex as human beings and many other species of animals and plants. Their hypotheses is equivalent to believing that if I grind my laptop in a Vitamix, then throw everything into the air, it will on its own, over the millions of years of course, become many laptops or may be space shuttles. That’s ironic, but the same logic is justified and is called scientific by many, when it comes to origins of life and everything that is in the world, yet it sounds very reasonable and logical to them.

The Bible explains such “phenomena of reasoning”. “..Because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”2Th.2:11

Looking into absurd alternatives for truth, they fulfill the scripture. 1Ti.4:1 “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron..”

You see, atheists have no problem believing claims that they have no evidences for, if such claims could support their faith. They will not look for extraordinary evidences to believe that a fish can become a frog then into a crocodile, or a monkey into a man. They will question the integrity of people who would rather die than to lie, but will cheer and accept the testimony of other atheists who have no moral obligations to neither tell the truth, nor care much about the truth themselves.

The philosophies, worldviews, hypothesis and the atheistic faith system wrapped in scientific terms, are the new “fig lives” that atheists have no other option but to believe and use to cover themselves up in an argument against God. For those who do not know what real science is – “educated blabber” may sound educated and persuasive. The definition of science up to date is: knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation. In order to consider and claim scientific phenomena must be observed. Then they have to come up with hypothesis (educated guess), then they have to subject the hypothesis to experimentation, and if experimentations yield universal result – such hypothesis become scientific statements and laws. Hypothesis definition is an idea or theory that is not proven but that leads to further study or discussion

What would happen if Vadim and his supporters would use same logic and reasoning to evaluate their “new found faith”. I imagine it would go something like this.

(Vadim’s statement and my paraphrases) I found it completely unreasonable for atheism to demand our faith based on really bad evidence, and in most cases, no evidence at all. And then if we don’t believe, atheism labels people as dumb, irrational, unreasonable, and illogical.

..But how can atheism justify its anger towards those of us today who have absolutely no reason to believe the claims of evolution?

Humans are rational creatures. When we hear someone make a claim, we apply logic and reason to that claim, weigh the evidence for and against, and then decide to believe it only if there is enough evidence to support the claim.

Why don’t we do that for the atheistic claims?

Why are we expected to put our logic and reason on hold when it comes to hypothesis that atheism claims and blindly believe?

I can fathom religion demanding blind faith in its historicity. For example, it may be reasonable to blindly believe that a man named Abraham existed thousands of years ago and a man named David was a king of Israel. There’s nothing really unbelievable about religious historical claims.

How about claims made by atheist?

How can anyone blindly believe that a mosquito grew into an elephant? That tasteless, odorless gas though natural selection turned into people, fish turn into frogs and produced birds?

That means that the more unbelievable your claim, the better your evidence should be for me to believe it.

Are we really being unreasonable if we require the same kind of evidence from ATHEISTS?

If you objectively pick on the atheistic bubble, it will pop. Despite all “good logic”, atheism is a very weak faith system, perhaps weaker than many other false religions, that works hard to suppress scientific evidences that expose its emptiness. Atheistic philosophy requires much more faith, physical power, effort and finances to persuade people to believe its ideals, than the faith in God. Talk about delusion! One will say that I make invalid arguments and overstate what atheism believes in. However, real claims of atheism are far more religious and require far more blind faith than any other religion in the world.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2015 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Questions Concerning Christian Faith.
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